Caslon11000 saidSpeaking of C, why does the English alphabet have 3 letters (C, K, and Q) that have a hard "K" sound?

I thought you liked etymology.

Etruscan had no voiced plosive consonants (b, d, g; which has the unvoiced counterparts p, t, and k/c) and thus adopted the greek letter for G (gamma) to represent the /k/ sound. This carried over to Early Latin which though having a /g/ sound also used a derivative of the etruscan alphabet (and thus had no letter for G). So they used the same letters (a gamma derivative which look like the modern C) for the /k/ sound and the /g/ sound. Furthermore, the Greek alphabet was reintroduced to the Romans and added two new letters for the same sounds: Q (Qoppa) and K (Kappa). These were also absorbed and were used to represent the same two sounds: /k/ and /g/. Although it is also suspected that for a short time, C was used to represent the /g/ sound while newly acquired K was used to represent the /k/ sound.

However, they developed certain differences in usage. Q began to be used only before rounded vowels (O and U - U in turn was also written as V, since U's/W's in original latin were pronounced in a semi-consonant manner, halfway between modern U and V), K before the A vowel, and C before everything else.

Thus 'Horse' - pronounced 'ekwus', classical Equus, would be EQVVS in Early Latin and gave rise to the accepted modern transliteration of 'Equus', although 'Ecuus' or 'Ekuus' would also have been perfectly correct. It survives into modern english in the way most words that have Q's are usually followed by U, e.g. 'Question', 'Quote', 'Quandary', 'Equality'

'Pebble', pronounced 'kalkulus', classical Calculus, would have been spelled KALQVLVS

'Body', pronounced 'korpus', classical Corpus would have been spelled QORPVS

'Gaius' a given name, pronounced 'gaius', classical Gaius would be spelled KAIVS

Later on, someone decided to invent the letter G, basically just a variant of C with a bar to distinguish between the /g/ and /k/ sound, not because it was needed but simply because the earlier removal of the letter 'Z' (the seventh letter in the Roman alphabet) created a space that disrupted the order of the alphabet (in other words, Romans were literally confused about their ABC's when Z was dropped, LOL. So they needed something to replace it so they could still sing their ABC's. I imagine the Germans feel the same with the recent decision to remove the sharp s 'ß' and replacing it with 'ss').

And even later, there began a shift of using the 'native' (etruscan) C rather than the 'foreign' (greek) K and Q, which survives into modern English. It's why C is more often used for the /k/ sound rather than K and Q. Same thing with the native F rather than the foreign Φ. etc. Which is why 'Gaius' began to appear as being spelled as CAIVS rather than the earlier KAIVS.

And much later, in the middle ages, Latin (or more accurately, Vulgar Latin) was spoken with the 'french' (continental Celts/Gauls/Iberian/part of Italy after the 'barbarian' invasions) influence (and gave rise to the romance languages). They palatized the Latin /t/, /g/, and /k/ sounds. Original Latin G began to be pronounced as /dzh/, C as /tsh/ or /ts/ or /tzh/, etc.

Which is why in Modern 'classical' Latin, we pronounce things like Civitas as 'Seevitas' rather than the correct original 'Keewitas'. And Genius as 'Dzhenius' rather than the correct original 'Genius'. This further evolved into a simple 's' sound rather than the original 'tsh' sound (written in modern french as the C-cedilla, Ç, etc).

Even the introduced C (by the Romans) into the Insular Celtic (the Scots, Welsh, Irish, etc.) alphabet originally only had the /k/ sound but underwent changes in spelling and pronunciation after the Norman conquest of the British islands. Adopting a /tsh/, /s/, or /ch/ sound. An example is the difference between the Old English Scip and Modern English 'Ship', originally pronounced 'Skip' (the pronunciation of which still survives in Modern English 'Skipper').

In short: English has 3 letters for the /k/ sound because they are relics of the evolution of languages. Much like how our vestigial parts are relics of biological evolution.

Caslon11000 saidSpeaking of C, why does the English alphabet have 3 letters (C, K, and Q) that have a hard "K" sound?

I thought you liked etymology.

I do, which is why I asked the question. I thought it would be fun. I had read about this years ago in a book now called "Letter Perfect."

To put your answer more succinctly, we have 3 letters that have the hard "K" sound because the Romans received their alphabet from the Greeks via the Erustcans. The Erustcans had several "K" sounds in their language, so they adapted several greek letters to represent them. They had no "G" sound, so the third letter, gamma, was co-opted to represent one of their "K" sounds. The Romans did have a "G" sound, so they had to reinvent a symbol for it, and took the "C" and gave it a distinguishing mark.

Caslon11000 saidSpeaking of C, why does the English alphabet have 3 letters (C, K, and Q) that have a hard "K" sound?

I thought you liked etymology.

Etruscan had no voiced plosive consonants (b, d, g; which has the unvoiced counterparts p, t, and k/c) and thus adopted the greek letter for G (gamma) to represent the /k/ sound. This carried over to Early Latin which though having a /g/ sound also used a derivative of the etruscan alphabet (and thus had no letter for G). So they used the same letters (a gamma derivative which look like the modern C) for the /k/ sound and the /g/ sound. Furthermore, the Greek alphabet was reintroduced to the Romans and added two new letters for the same sounds: Q (Qoppa) and K (Kappa). These were also absorbed and were used to represent the same two sounds: /k/ and /g/. Although it is also suspected that for a short time, C was used to represent the /g/ sound while newly acquired K was used to represent the /k/ sound.

However, they developed certain differences in usage. Q began to be used only before rounded vowels (O and U - U in turn was also written as V, since U's/W's in original latin were pronounced in a semi-consonant manner, halfway between modern U and V), K before the A vowel, and C before everything else.

Thus 'Horse' - pronounced 'ekwus', classical Equus, would be EQVVS in Early Latin and gave rise to the accepted modern transliteration of 'Equus', although 'Ecuus' or 'Ekuus' would also have been perfectly correct. It survives into modern english in the way most words that have Q's are usually followed by U, e.g. 'Question', 'Quote', 'Quandary', 'Equality'

'Pebble', pronounced 'kalkulus', classical Calculus, would have been spelled KALQVLVS

'Body', pronounced 'korpus', classical Corpus would have been spelled QORPVS

'Gaius' a given name, pronounced 'gaius', classical Gaius would be spelled KAIVS

Later on, someone decided to invent the letter G, basically just a variant of C with a bar to distinguish between the /g/ and /k/ sound, not because it was needed but simply because the earlier removal of the letter 'Z' (the seventh letter in the Roman alphabet) created a space that disrupted the order of the alphabet (in other words, Romans were literally confused about their ABC's when Z was dropped, LOL. So they needed something to replace it so they could still sing their ABC's. I imagine the Germans feel the same with the recent decision to remove the sharp s 'ß' and replacing it with 'ss').

And even later, there began a shift of using the 'native' (etruscan) C rather than the 'foreign' (greek) K and Q, which survives into modern English. It's why C is more often used for the /k/ sound rather than K and Q. Same thing with the native F rather than the foreign Φ. etc. Which is why 'Gaius' began to appear as being spelled as CAIVS rather than the earlier KAIVS.

And much later, in the middle ages, Latin (or more accurately, Vulgar Latin) was spoken with the 'french' (continental Celts/Gauls/Iberian/part of Italy after the 'barbarian' invasions) influence (and gave rise to the romance languages). They palatized the Latin /t/, /g/, and /k/ sounds. Original Latin G began to be pronounced as /dzh/, C as /tsh/ or /ts/ or /tzh/, etc.

Which is why in Modern 'classical' Latin, we pronounce things like Civitas as 'Seevitas' rather than the correct original 'Keewitas'. And Genius as 'Dzhenius' rather than the correct original 'Genius'. This further evolved into a simple 's' sound rather than the original 'tsh' sound (written in modern french as the C-cedilla, Ç, etc).

Even the introduced C (by the Romans) into the Insular Celtic (the Scots, Welsh, Irish, etc.) alphabet originally only had the /k/ sound but underwent changes in spelling and pronunciation after the Norman conquest of the British islands. Adopting a /tsh/, /s/, or /ch/ sound. An example is the difference between the Old English Scip and Modern English 'Ship', originally pronounced 'Skip' (the pronunciation of which still survives in Modern English 'Skipper').

In short: English has 3 letters for the /k/ sound because they are relics of the evolution of languages. Much like how our vestigial parts are relics of biological evolution.

/end walloftext

cute, funny and now smart. someone better grab this one before its too late